America might have just found a potential fuel source that can revolutionize the hydrogen sector. The discovery of hydrogen in rocks in several locations around the world introduced us to “white hydrogen,” and it could be the future of the energy sector. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but the problem with hydrogen is that it is always attached to another element, like oxygen or carbon. This discovery of naturally forming hydrogen pockets in the rock beneath our feet has shaken the world up.
White hydrogen could be an untapped resource that has so much potential
Researchers at MIT have discovered several locations in the United States that have these pockets of hydrogen in abundance in the rocks that make up the foundation of the Earth. The United States Department of Energy has given significant funding to several research teams to explore the hydrogen being emitted by these rocks and how to extract it.
Geologic hydrogen, as it’s known, is produced when water reacts with iron-rich rocks, causing the iron to oxidize. That steam is laced with hydrogen and could become a sustainable fuel source that could power the world for the foreseeable future, as the survey claims that billions of liters of hydrogen are waiting to be extracted right beneath us.
The DOE has awarded several research teams with over $20 million in grants to explore the phenomenon further. One of those research teams comes from MIT and is led by MIT Assistant Professor Iwnetim Abate.
“We aim to optimize the reaction parameters to make the reaction faster and produce hydrogen in an economically feasible manner.” – MIT Assistant Professor Iwnetim Abate
The iron-rich rocks can be found all over the United States
The DOE has a vested interest in the hydrogen-rich rocks being examined further as it aims to revitalize America’s energy sector, in particular, the renewable energy sector. Among those recipients of the grant from the DOE are:
- The Colorado School of Mines
- Texas Tech University
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
And the private sector is getting in on the action. Amazon and the Bill Gates Foundation have funded a hydrogen startup called Koloma. So it is only a matter of time before the iron-rich rocks are examined for potential extraction processes. The problem with hydrogen is that, at the moment, it is very expensive to produce. “If you get hydrogen at a dollar a kilo, it’s competitive with natural gas on an energy-price basis,” says Douglas Wicks, a program director at Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), the Department of Energy organization leading the geologic hydrogen grant program.
“If we can understand how to stimulate these rocks into generating hydrogen, safely getting it up, it really unleashes the potential energy source,” he says. Then the emerging industry will look to oil and gas for the drilling, piping, and gas extraction know-how. As I like to say, this is enabling technology that we hope to, in a very short term, enable us to say, ‘Is there really something there?’”
Hydrogen is still the best bet for the fuel of the future
While the renewable energy sector has seen significant advancements thanks to revitalized interest in the sector, hydrogen is still our best option for the “fuel of the future” that the world is searching for. Discoveries have been made in the world’s oceans that suggest that hydrogen can be found everywhere on our planet. The researchers at MIT are planning to use their percentage of the DOE grant to further examine the iron-rich rocks and what might be the best way to extract the hydrogen and use it in our everyday lives.
